


The Cause and End of Movement

by griesly



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alien Biology, Dubious Consent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Kylux Eggstravaganza, Multi, Multiple Partners, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Original Character(s), Polyamory, Porn With Plot, Semi-Public Sex, Sensory Deprivation, Touch-Starved, Voyeurism, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-19 22:52:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10649733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/griesly/pseuds/griesly
Summary: Hux seems a bit strange after the loss of Starkiller. Disaffected. Disconnected. When beautifully designed eggs start showing up at his door around a holiday he remembers from childhood, things get a lot ... stranger.This started as a fill for theKylux Eggstravaganzaprompt: "Life Day on Arkanis involves gifting coloured eggs. In an attempt to woo Hux, Kylo gives him a set of what he thinks are traditional eggs. Turns out these were designed for a different use." That's where it began, but it turned into something much different along the way. Sorry I utterly destroyed your prompt, OP - I hope you enjoy it anyway!*Please see the end notes for a discussion of the dubious consent warning.





	The Cause and End of Movement

 

 

Hux awoke with a start at the sound of shattering glass, nearly falling off the transparisteel window ledge in his quarters. The broken remnants of what had once been a delicate bottle of top shelf tsiraki littered the floor below. The last Hux remembered, his lips had been wrapped tight around the neck, sucking down as much of the sour green liquor as he could in one gulp. To point, there wasn’t a single drop of liquid gone to waste among the mess. Wickedly pointed shards glittered in the filtered starlight, making his head throb all the harder. Hux pondered their arrangement and asymmetry, as though scrying for some pithy revelation, something to give his new and awkward situation meaning.

The stars knew nothing else had made sense in the weeks since the demise of Starkiller, since humiliation had settled around his shoulders like a yoke. A lingering haze of dreams clouded his vision, unsettling and recurrent, a phantom touch of something unseen and unknown still clinging to him once he woke. The liquor was a numbing comfort until it wore off, but the Officer’s Pantry was beginning to run dry.    

He’d been dreaming about the dark again. No boundaries, no relief from the endless pit that held him. At least when it happened, there had been a floor beneath him, if nothing else. Try as he might to forget it, Snoke’s methods had been too effective, too thorough to simply root out and destroy.

Hux had been trapped there so long that when the voices began, they came as a strange sort of equalizer. Voices at once too strange and too familiar. Some foolish part of him wanted them back, but he could never have allowed such a weakness under the artificial daylight glare. He wasn’t meant to take comfort, not even in a hallucination. Half-remembered faults haunted him, memories of calling out, reaching for something, anything familiar and catching on the worst target of all. How ironic, how _distasteful_ , that the one whose touch he’d spent the most time imagining was the reason he was in this mess to begin with. Why his brain couldn’t have just made someone up, he didn’t know. Sometimes, Hux was sure that was the reason he drowned himself in poison rather than tread water in his own thoughts.

Even mired in the world of light and sound, Hux longed for some external force, a great hand to strike him down for his failings. That was of course why the Supreme Leader in his infinite wisdom had seen fit to lock him away in the cold, the dark, the silence. For days, possibly weeks, Hux had lived in the shadow of a punishment that would never come. The longer he waited, the more convinced he became that it would only be that much worse when it hit.

His real punishment waited for him on returning to the Finalizer, his command and due glory now turned over to an ambitious worm named Sathak Tal. His staff, whose loyalty lay with the Order, served their new superior with an eager and embarrassing alacrity. It was only as it should be, what he would have expected as an incoming ranking officer. Hux couldn’t explain why it stung so viciously.  

A beeping from the door roused Hux from the swamp of his thoughts. It was a droid chime, sparing him the indignity of having to look another crewman in the eye. “Enter,” he called out, too dizzy to make it over to the door himself. The panels hissed along their track, allowing in a protocol droid that clacked its way across the metal tiles.

“Delivery for you, sir.” The droid waited at attention, holding a square box just out of arm’s reach. Hux grunted and slid down from the shelf, taking it from the mechanical nuisance. At least someone still addressed him politely.

“Yes, good,” he muttered, waving it off. “You’re dismissed.” The droid glanced down at the shards of glass, then back up at Hux. “Go,” he insisted, and this time it did as told, although pausing to interface with a small panel before it left. The lights rose slowly to a tolerable dimness and Hux squinted through too-long strands of hair falling across his eyes. He scoffed at the droid’s retreating form, but didn’t bother to dial the lights back down.

The box was made from a light wood he didn’t recognize, dinged along the sides and covered in worn black metal at the edges. It was heavy, and felt terribly old in his hands. Was this from Ren? Some stupid relic he was meant to examine and pretend he understood? Hux didn’t know why he would have bothered - particularly since he couldn’t even seem to find the catch to open it.

After nearly dropping the box twice, Hux set it down on the small table where he took most meals these days and sat before it, fingers steepled, staring down at the lid. If it was a puzzle, it could wait until he was sober. A small voice at the back of his mind reminded Hux that he might never see sobriety again, and he might as well just shoot the damn thing open.    

A soft click sounded in the stillness of the room. Hux poked experimentally at one panel, and the lid of the box popped up as if in self-defense. Inside, cradled in a nest of soft black fabric, rested something he hadn’t seen in decades. It was an egg, or at least shaped like one, yellowed slightly in places and likely carved from bone. An intricate web of patterns spun across a hollow core, not unlike coral or a piece of lace. Hux wanted to touch it but found himself terrified of breaking it.

When he was four years old, his mother had given him something very like this. One day a year, the people of Arkanis celebrated the local flora, in particular a certain tree that yielded a large, hanging fruit. The pendant bodies were a staple of cuisine and decoration, resembling nothing so much as giant eggs from the marsupial terrors in the rain bogs. Painted or carved, strung in garlands or hanging above doorways for luck, they were as familiar a sight as the great trees themselves. On that day, his mother had pressed one into his hands, small and delicate, carved with the shape of a legendary bird. It was red and orange and yellow, tiny tongues of flame whirling and dancing along the curving sides. He knew the fable, but Hux didn’t see how anything could burn so long when the rain never stopped.

Before long, Hux would visit other worlds and find that Arkanis was not alone in their tradition. Some were celebrations of the perfect blossom, festivals of this-or-that staple, even whole carnivals for lakes and streams and seasonal rains. Some were called Life Day, some were called Harvest Night, and all of them looked wonderful. He wouldn’t know, having never been to a single one. They were wasteful, his father said. Pointless.                      

He reached out twice, drawing back once before managing to pluck the bauble from its nest of fabric. Holding it carefully up to the light, Hux found it wasn’t quite as delicate as he had imagined. It felt like age and perseverance; poise and praxis. It was a wonder of craftsmanship, and he suddenly wanted to know who had carved it, where it had come from, what purpose it was meant to serve. Why would Ren send him something like this? It was - it was almost like a gift. The man couldn’t know what memories it would trigger for him. Could he?

If he knew about this particular memory, Hux preferred not to think about what else Ren might have pulled from his mind. Did he know how long Hux had managed to keep the painted egg? Had he seen through Hux’s eyes, felt what it was like when the other boys at school discovered it? Had he stopped pilfering through Hux’s thoughts long enough to watch the way it cracked and disappeared beneath some bully’s boot heel? He must have, or else he never would have sent something like this.   

It was humiliating. Was that the point? Did Ren know how often Hux’s thoughts had turned to him in the dark and how much it terrified him still? Turning the egg this way and that, watching its pale reflection in the window overlaid with stars, Hux wondered if it would break just as easily as him.

 

The days that followed felt oddly fragile, a hum rising from his bones to keep him restless. The provenance of the mysterious egg gnawed away at his nerves. Hux paced the narrow access shafts and stalked the service tunnels, having found a place among the Finalizer’s mechanic corps without much complaint. The inner workings of vessels large and small had always been a comfort, and here, below decks and between, buried beneath their immensity, awash in the thrum and throaty rumblings of the great machines, Hux could forget most of his mistakes. Here, at least, he could manage competence, no matter how brutal the hangover, or how drunk the day had started. The work kept his hands steady, his focus on spanner and bolt and fuse, and pushed more complex thoughts to the back of his mind. Still, they waited for him. As soon as he left the sheltering warren of engine housings and tractor beam projectors, they loomed, ever patient in their vigil.

Thankfully for tonight, Hux was already drunk, had been angry and tired before he was drunk, and was unlikely to care overmuch about the mysterious artefact. He tossed and turned, the pillow lumpy, the mattress too flat. Hux doubted anyone would stop him if he commandeered slightly better quarters elsewhere in the ship, but pride had held him back from the officer’s decks. This room held all the necessities and was far enough out of the way that he almost never ran into anyone that mattered. That would be a difficult amenity to give up.

Sighing heavily, Hux jammed one arm under his pillow and tried again. It has been a few cycles since he’d had anything approximating rest. The electric hum of insomnia traced a rambling path along his skin. He imagined it like a wandering blue light, mindless, raising gooseflesh in its wake. He knew it wasn’t material, but it felt every bit as real as fingers ghosting across his skin. Hux couldn’t help the weakness that stole over him then, knowing that contact, any sort of contact there in the dark could set his fraying nerves to rest.

He didn’t have to reach far. The presence that sometimes descended in his more self-absorbed hours, mired equally in loneliness and loathing, seemed to have been waiting just out of sight. What felt like a hand stroked down his arm, shoulder to wrist, and Hux imagined he heard a small sigh as a weight settled against his back. An unseen arm wrapped around his waist, pulling him back into an impossible embrace. A sound of contentment escaped Hux’s lips. He always managed to forget just how _nice_ it was to be touched.

Soft lips brushed against the back of his neck, and Hux’s eyes flew open. The shadow had held him before, wrapped thick arms around him tightly in the small hours, but never had it done anything like that. He felt it again at the top of his spine and let his eyes roll back, eyelids fluttering as he shivered. It shouldn’t have been arousing, but Hux really couldn’t help that, especially when the touch traveled lightly back up his neck. He stretched to give it more room, encouraging with a low, pleased sound. It settled in beneath his earlobe with what felt for all the world like a flick of a tongue against the sensitive cleft.

The arm draped across his waist drew back slowly and Hux felt clearly a hand sliding up his stomach. His breaths came shallow, but when a fingertip grazed the underside of his nipple, he stopped breathing altogether. His cock twiched with definite interest. The fingertip circled around the sensitive nub, drawing out a moan when it rubbed across the top. Hux felt suspended, caught in some sort of space outside of time and consequence.

Fingers splayed across his chest and gently pushed Hux onto his back, letting him recline at his own pace. He’d never had the courage to turn and look behind him when he’d felt this before, and Hux almost couldn’t open his eyes for fear of what he might see now. The answer was nothing, just empty space that felt more solid than the bed beneath him. It was disorienting, and for a moment fear of the situation nearly overwhelmed him. He reached out with one hand, contacting nothing, until firm hands grasped him just below each wrist. They pushed him back, holding him in place.

“Tell me this is you,” he whispered to the dark, breath shaky in his throat. Only silence met his request, both within his mind and without. “Say something. I won’t be afraid if it’s you, Ren, I won’t.” Hux felt his face burn with shame at his own words.

A barely-there touch against his cheek moved up until he could feel lips pressed gently against his forehead. It wasn’t a statement of identity, or much admonishment against fear, but Hux would take what he could get. He relaxed in the shadow’s grip, sinking back down into the sheets.

The feather-light touch on his forehead traveled down to his jaw, then beneath it, sliding down his neck to rest for a moment at his collarbone. Without loosing its grip on his arms, the invisible mouth trailed fire down his chest, deviating only briefly to lick at his left nipple before continuing on in a line. Hux felt a tongue dip into his navel and make a brief swirl before his arms were tugged down to his sides. He squirmed at the restriction, unnerved but still eager.                       

Continued pressure above his wrists bound Hux’s arms firmly at his sides. His breath caught, his cock jerked against his stomach. Laid out and helpless, half-terrified, Hux felt more alive than he had in months. It didn’t matter that this could only be one of two things, that it was just as humiliating as it was arousing. He honestly didn’t know if Ren’s Force abilities would even let him do this, or if he must be dreaming, after all. He didn’t know, and right now he didn’t care.

Hux wasn’t sure when those lips had left his skin, but he wanted them back. Fingers instead trailed lightly down his chest, the ghostly hand brushing playfully at the patch of hair below his navel. It slipped under the loose waistband of his trousers, as if bound by only some of the physical properties of the world. When fingertips brushed against his cock, hard and hot against his stomach, Hux bit his lip to stop from screaming. This was no imagined shadow. It felt as solid as any hand that had ever touched him, in the dark or otherwise.

Wrapping its fingers around his erection, the hand stroked up in long, slow pulls. Hux groaned, his hips jerking up without permission. The same weight that occupied his hands pressed his hips down into the mattress, stronger than Hux could overcome. He pushed up against it anyway, the certainty of being trapped gone to his head like champagne. The phantom hand was in no hurry, sliding up and down at a glacial pace, letting his pleasure and frustration build. His hands grasped at the sheets while his feet slipped and slid, unable to find a point to brace against. Firmer strokes wrenched moans from his throat and Hux was grateful that the layered metal on the walls served as convenient baffles for noise. He made a high-pitched keening, back arched, white-knuckled, as the world narrowed to a single sensation.   

Hux was embarrassingly close, having not bothered to take care of himself in longer than he could remember. He was tired, he was miserable, he was ashamed of every day that he continued to occupy space aboard his - no, someone else’s - ship. Being seen to by another, known or unknown, was an unbearable luxury. Hux’s eyes rolled back in his head, nearing a point where he couldn’t stand the steady rhythm any longer.

Just as he thought he might topple over the edge, a weight settled around his balls, tugging him down into consciousness again. The urgency lifted, though just barely, and the strokes grew lighter. “Please,” he gasped out, head thrown back against the pillow. The teasing was too much, too real. The hand gave his balls a quick squeeze and Hux cried out, his head lifting off the pillow. A light stroke up, a squeeze, a quick rub along the top of his swollen glans, and Hux scrambled against the sheets, arching his toes. “Please,” he begged, more insistent, and a heavier downstroke nearly made him choke. Everything narrowed to the rush and swell of blood. Up, then down, merciless. Up again, repeating. His muscles contracted, painfully taut from his neck to his calves. The pressure eased on his balls and a shuddering spasm began, spreading to every corner of his body. One fingertip slid down, pressing against his entrance and Hux was gone. When he came, it felt like something breaking. He shot thick and wet onto his chest, eyes squeezed shut, only after a long moment reminding himself to breathe.       

The ghostly hands stroked down his arms as the restriction lifted and Hux thrust his hips up with the rolling aftershocks. He gripped his cock with fingers gone numb and stroked himself through it, gasping. Any fear of his unseen partner had vanished with the palpable understanding that it meant him no harm. He pinched the inside of his groin and determined that no, he wasn’t actually dreaming. He was wide awake, if only for the next few moments.

Hands moved lightly down his chest, then slid down the inside of his thighs. His eyelids drifted shut, content to feel and be felt. Rolling over on one side, Hux pulled his knees up and breathed out a long sigh. He was asleep in moments, but not before feeling that spectral arm wrap back around his waist, pulling him flush with the darkness.       

       

The morning after, and every waking moment since found Hux far less enthusiastic about the experience. Small bruises along his forearms proved that it had not been a dream, and if it was real, there was only one person who could have managed it. He hated himself a little for wanting, for needing that touch in the dark so desperately and not just from anyone, no - he craved that attention from Kylo Ren. Before the demise of Starkiller, Hux never would have considered the idea, much less given into it. Despite Snoke’s insistence that they equaled one another in rank, Hux had always allowed himself to feel superior. Funny, he thought, how the loss of everything that mattered could change a man.  

So far he’d been lucky enough to avoid Ren in the corridors of the ship, but Hux knew it was only a matter of time. If Ren wanted to seek Hux out, he would find him. On his way to the Level 13B Gymnasium to work out his petty aggressions, Hux’s luck ran out. He pulled up short at the sight of Kylo Ren approaching from the opposite direction, flanked by two of his knights. One was small and thin, almost unnoticeable beside their comrades. The other was tall, a band of needle-like spikes hovering above its brow to shadow its face. It didn’t seem to have a mask, though it must, as it proved impossible to focus on its features. Hux found himself glancing away every time he looked. Sharp crystalline knives clustered along a wide sash in two groups, reflecting the red lighting from tracts above.

 _Mercy_ , Hux thought, then gave a quick shake of his head at the unfamiliar thought. As a suggestion, it came with no context. _A title,_ followed quickly behind, information unlooked for thought not unwelcome.   

“All right,” Hux said, surprised as the words left his mouth. If it was a title, he thought, his mind plowing forward heedless of all good sense, it must have been earned. What sort of mercy could be expected from a Knight of Ren?

 _A good death,_ came the response as the honor guard outpaced Ren and passed him by to either side. _Swift, clean._

Hux nodded, eyebrows raised, but his attention shifted as Ren stepped forward. He was immediately grateful for the new mask Ren had built after losing the old one planetside. Hux didn’t think he could look him in the eye today, even if the night before had only been a dream. In a way, that would have been worse, as Hux had no doubt Ren would simply skim his thoughts and see the entire thing. There was only so much embarrassment Hux could stand.

Ren continued to advance, stopping only once he barely grazed Hux’s shoulder. He waited for what could have been a moment but felt like an age. “Don’t be afraid,” he said quietly, the words vibrating through the modulator to send a shiver down Hux’s neck. Hux stood ramrod straight, fists clenched at his sides, eyes wide and staring. Ren did not linger, cloak swaying behind him as he passed.

Now Hux knew, but the knowledge proved more unnerving than ignorance.   

  


Covered in grease and soot after two shifts spent repairing the outskirts of the III-A1A reactor bloc from a fire, Hux tripped over another small box. This one waited just outside his quarters, an oblong frame all but hidden against the unrelieved black and grey on the walls. It was solidly built and sturdy, which saved it from crumpling beneath his heel. Tucking it beneath his arm, Hux dropped it on the table on his way to the refresher and promptly forgot all about it.

He woke some hours later in a haze of exhausted confusion, sprawled atop the blankets and clad in only a pair of shorts. Grease still stained his fingertips, lodged black beneath his fingernails in defiance of the sonic’s efforts. He passed the box by without notice on the way to the conservator for a cold beer. The kitchenette in his new quarters was small, but serviceable, if currently understocked. Hux stared at his reflection in the gasser panelling, polished to a mirror shine by some overzealous droid. He needed a shave. He needed more sleep. Hux needed a lot of things that he simply wasn’t going to get.

Turning back to the room, beer already half gone, the small metal rectangle drew his attention. The case easily opened with a switch, and he slid down into a chair to get a better look. A metal loop extended out from one side and held within its grasp another egg. This one was neither delicate nor fanciful, carved to resemble two snakes winding around one another to meet in a single point. The metal gave him a faint shock when he lifted it from its cradle, and Hux thought he smelled the sharp spike of ozone that preceded a storm. The stone was dark, but flared to an uncomfortable brightness when it caught the light. It reminded him of something he had seen as a boy, traveling through unknown space aboard a crowded transport. A small ocean moon circled a dry and blistered world, covered completely in a layer of ice. It glimmered and shone with a cruel reflected glare, as if mocking the desert below. It was beautiful in the way of things best left alone.

When sleep found him again, Hux dreamed himself to the bottom of an ocean that would never know a single dawn.

 

Days passed, and then a week without seeing Ren or receiving another box. The eggs sat in a cubby above the bed that Hux had never known how to fill until now. He supposed it was for personal items, flat-holos, things he had never bothered to keep. Now he had two knick knacks of his own to collect dust. Though, Hux told himself, if he kept taking them down to better look at them, turning them up to the light, running his fingers along their carved and curved lines, they never would need much cleaning. Questions remained of course, as to their provenance and purpose, but simply holding them in his hands made him feel somehow less unmoored.

Placing them back on their shelf, Hux rolled onto his back and closed his eyes. As little as he wanted to dream about the uncharted ocean again, it was still better than the yawning void. There was a tension to the water around him that followed Hux through his waking hours, the pull of a tide he could feel in his bones. It was something to hold him together, something to give him back the boundaries he had lost. Though without knowing what lurked in the shadowed depths, the waters ran just shy of any sort of solace.

Later, Hux couldn’t remember letting the knight into his quarters, but he supposed they didn’t need the passcode to travel wherever they wished. Ren allowed them the run of the ship, and his indignant protests had always fallen on deaf ears. More likely out of boredom than respect, one had never breached his personal rooms - until now.   

Hux did remember long, scaled fingers pulling back the hood from its face, a green fabric so dark as to be black in any but the brightest light. This one, he knew as a creeping sort of terror. This one, sloped mask carved from chitin or else charred bone, he knew as Auspex. The top of the mask swept back in a point that rested against its crown, nearly seamless with a line of curving spines that merged to form an undulating crest. A scaled jaw protruded beneath, pale and green and brown.  A long, thick tail trailed out from beneath its robes, brushing back and forth, back and forth, along the floor.

Hux had long wondered just what species lurked beneath the voluminous robes that fluttered when it stalked the halls of his ship. In the later phases of the Starkiller project, he had rarely slept, crossing paths with the knight too often pacing the dim, empty corridors. He had only managed to speak once, his mind weary and scattered after too many chain-linked shifts.

“Do you ever sleep?” he’d asked, regretting every molecule of air that left his mouth. It tilted its head, silent for a long moment before answering.

“I see further while others take their rest.” A sibilant string of words, a slight hiss to soften the edges. Hux had given a perfunctory nod as if he understood. Gone their separate ways, Hux had never found the courage to speak to the knight again.      

“What do you want?” he asked now, shivering a little in its unexpected presence.

“You are too much alone,” Auspex answered bluntly, causing a slight recoil in Hux’s chest. “But I have seen that this will not always be so.”

Hux didn’t realize he had growled until he heard it echo back from the walls. He rose to his feet, the step he took forward fueled by pure indignation. What right did this - this _creature_ have to search out the thoughts that infested the back of his mind, gnawing their way to the surface when he was half asleep, when he felt weak and useless?

Of course he was lonely, Hux thought more than a little defensively. He’d lost everything that had ever given him comfort. His project, his command, his respect, all had been stripped away in the hateful instant that Snoke had magnified, stretched out to taint what time he had left.

“No,” Auspex corrected - and _he_ the beast insisted, wedged uncomfortably between his thoughts. Hux was much more comfortable with _it._ “You have surrounded yourself with emptiness, but it does not have to consume you.”

“It may as well,” Hux said bitterly.  

“No,” the knight repeated. “You have avoided us,” he continued, clasping his hands behind his back and stepping further into the room.

“Why do you say that?” Hux questioned, hedging.

“If I speak, it is because I find it necessary.” Spex regarded him coolly from behind his artificial front. “I do not waste my breath on platitudes.” He stretched out a hand, the sleeve of his robe sliding back to reveal a patch of tiny scales, iridescent in the low light. Hux felt a tug, not so much in a single location, but spread out, all encompassing. A loose grip on his shirt, a gentle push in the small of his back. He allowed himself to be drawn in, even as Spex stepped forward to meet him.

“What do you need from us?” Knobby fingers brushed Hux’s cheeks, his face cradled in the knight’s cold hands.

“I don’t know,” Hux answered a bit dishonestly, searching the obliquely carved mask before him as if he could read the answer there. “I only know what I used to want.” Auspex nodded as if he understood, and Hux felt something brush against the back of his neck, trailing down along his spine.  

The rest of it, Hux thought, had surely been a dream. He remembered closing his eyes, ducking his head as the knight’s hands slipped from his face. Understanding that if he couldn’t even form the shape of a request within his mind, the knights couldn’t very well fulfill it. He remembered watching the light glint and glimmer on the surface of something drawn out from beneath the knight’s robes, something rounded and oblong and radiant.

It was yet another egg, this one made from tiny hemispheres of colored glass bonded together like a coat of mail. Placing it in Hux’s palm, Spex nodded his head as if pleased to have the gift accepted. The miniature tiles reflected green and purple light, some carved with tiny sweeping lines Hux knew as a sign for rushing wind. It was beautiful.

Hux could recall balancing it in the cubby next to the others, reluctant to take his hands away from its rough-smooth-rough texture, even for a moment. He remembered smiling. He remembered the soft swish of robes, the sweep of a long tail along the tiles as Auspex left him there, the doors sliding shut in his wake with a quiet hiss.

Hux also remembered the gentle scrape of small, blunted claws along his sides as his grease-stained tunic was lifted up over his head, remembered the sound of his trousers hitting the floor and the creak of the bed beneath him as he fell back onto the mattress. He knew the way the knight’s robes parted down the center, allowing his roving hands access to cool, leathery skin, knew the feel of the ridges and whorls on the mask as they slid down along his inner thigh. Hux would never forget the pads of Spex’s fingers rolling a nipple between them, the sound that he made as a rough palm brushed over the other from beneath and traveled on.

The details were there, innumerable and vivid, but as if in a story told by someone else. Had he really allowed those long fingers to slide down beside his cock, giving a brief caress to his balls before lifting them up? Let the round finger pads press against his entrance, massaging the ring of muscle clenched tight in nervous pleasure? Had he allowed one to slip just barely inside, making his hips buck, his mouth fall open, only to be replaced by a cool, wet tongue lapping at the edges? He would have, Hux knew, had it been real. He would have begged for that lengthy tongue to flick at his skin, to slide down and then inside him as if made for that sole purpose. He would have cried out for it, spread his legs for it, the thick muscle slipping in and out slowly to tease him while claws scratched lightly along his thighs.

He would have moaned and writhed as the smooth snout of the mask brushed against his groin, a conflicting sensation that only drove him wilder. Could have spasmed hard in breathless relief as that tongue coiled around him, deep jaws hinging closed to massage along his underside and suck him down, the pressure drawing out a shuddering orgasm. He could have pleaded with his cold, composed lover to take off the mask, if only this once, to let him really see - and been denied.     

Maybe then Hux wouldn’t have woken up covered in his own come, sticky and wet across his chest, and his hand pumping his cock for more.       

 

More and more often, Hux found himself glancing at the shelf that held the decorative eggs, feeling as though something was missing. He told himself it wasn’t the work of art from his dream, as he’d quite simply made that up. Only a child would expect it to appear in the morning as if brought in the night by a visiting wistie. No one had barged into his rooms to deliver the stained-glass bauble along with some cryptic message. The egg wasn’t very well going to materialize in front of him just because he’d thought it was _pretty_.

The egg wasn’t the only thing Hux found himself wishing would materialize. The dream had done an excellent job of telling him that he knew exactly what he wanted, he just couldn’t make up his mind to seek it out. That would involve first owning up to desire. He never used to need much to feel content in that department. A clandestine tryst here and there with a low-ranking crewman served him well enough, someone no one would ever believe even if they ran their mouth off about it. Someone he could fuck over his desk for a day or two, maybe a week at most, and transfer to another post entirely if he simply never wanted to see them again. It had worked out perfectly well for years, but now there was a space that lived inside him, a perfect void, created by a single brilliant act of cruelty. Some part of him would forever be trying to fill that emptiness without any success.  

Some part of him, Hux thought, staring into the mirror in the refresher, some part of him would always be whining about it, if only to himself. That was the truly hilarious part - there wasn’t even anyone around to listen to his litany of complaints. It was ironic, he knew, for a ranking officer in the First Order - well, former ranking officer - to daydream about the touch of another species, cold and rough against his skin. He’d always had a passing, if repressed, interest in that sort of thing, probably because it was deemed so blasphemous and he’d never had a chance to properly rebel like anyone else before settling into his appointed destiny.   

A cadet in his level once faced a court-martial for what must have been a particularly intense weekend with a twi’lek musician, as she’d gone off to her punishment with a smug little smile. Hux figured the boy who informed on her had done it out of jealousy, but he supposed it could have been some overblown sense of duty to the cause. As Hux had grown, that tiny kernel of loyalty sown in him by his father had been layered over with a gloss of duty and ambition until all that showed through was zealous obedience. To austerity, to his superiors, to the Order itself.

The streak in him that had once quietly rejoiced for anathema had been kept down so far for so long, Hux hadn’t immediately recognized it when it bubbled back up to the surface. It had never brought him shame for wanting, but instead slotted into place as something extravagant, something entirely unnecessary in the life of a good officer. After all, it was so much safer not to want the bright and shining things of the universe. Once you found them, they would only be taken away.      

      

 

Hux came back to his quarters from Medical with a small bacta plaster wrapped around his hand, the tiny cuts beneath still hot and stinging. The droid that saw to him was very thorough, but he was sure some miniature scraps of metal remained lodged in the valleys between his fingers. Hux was lucky he hadn’t lost the hand entirely when the compressor tubing collapsed, sending a metal plank down the vent in a rain of sparks. The primary fuse burst, the threading snapped, and then the entire poorly installed mess had come crashing down.  

He could still hear his own shout, echoing. It was a minor accident, almost silly, not worth the pounding in his chest, the continued ringing in his ears. Hux knew there was talk among the repair teams, rumours that took root after he vanished with Ren in the wake of the Starkiller disaster. The talk had mostly settled down before flaring back to life when he showed his face among them to pass the time.

They weren’t lies, not exactly. They weren’t even mean-spirited. Just that old General Hux had gone a bit soft in the head after losing his pet superweapon, driven there by the Resistance or else the Supreme Leader himself in punishment for his spectacular failure. They weren’t that far off. That was the thing about growing accustomed to the dark. Everything had been too bright, too loud, after the door had finally opened back onto the world. It was hard to put that sort of vigilance back into the box. Leave him alone, they said. He’s just trying to get through the cycle, like anybody else. Again, they weren’t that far off.

Letting the doors slide shut behind him, Hux stopped just inside the room. An oddly rounded container sat on his table without any sort of note or explanation. It looked like it had been woven from some sort of dried vine or bramble with streams of wood shavings leaking out from the gaps. His lip curled up in disgust. His distaste for the mess warred with a sharp spike of curiousity to see what might be inside. Hux knew what he hoped for and it was unforgivably foolish.    

He tried to ignore it, fussing about in the kitchenette, rehydrating some thoroughly unappetizing rations and standing at the counter to eat. He changed the sheets on his bed, a task long overdue. He even gave his boots a good polish, but none of it worked. The mystery of the crate taunted him until he tossed his kit aside and leaned over the table, trying to figure out how the little bugger opened. After a good amount of time spent turning it around, holding it up, and pressing at various vine-like protrusions, Hux was outdone. There simply was no lock, no catch, no lid to pop open. Was he supposed to cut it open? Unravel it? Hux frowned, ready to give up for the night when the box made a small jump, sliding a few standard inches across the table.    

Hux stared, his hands hastily drawn back. Why was it moving? More importantly, how? It left a trail in the thin layer of sawdust, but Hux couldn’t see tracks of any kind. If it wasn’t on some sort of wheel or treads, then how -? It jumped again, this time landing closer to Hux. It wobbled back and forth for a few seconds, and then Hux saw it. A thin, stretchy band, looped behind and through the brambles to catch on a hidden thorn. Clever. Mindful of the point, he sliced the band open with a small utility tool from his pocket. The lid creaked just barely open, and the entire container shivered. Hux counted to ten, irritated and vaguely spooked. The box settled down and he carefully lifted the lid.     

Inside, nestled on a bed of wood shavings, sat what looked like a mass of lumpy red jasper veined through with metal. Three separate nodes fused at the base stuck out at odd angles, a crack running straight up one side on the largest. It felt rough against his skin when Hux picked it up, like unfinished stone. An eerie chittering sounded from inside and he dropped it back down in its case.   

It was a toy, meant to simulate a cluster of hatching eggs. That was it, Hux thought. He was an idiot for not seeing it sooner. It was the right time of year. Puzzle boxes, animal carvings, now some sort of child’s mechanical plaything in a basket. He was being mocked, and it was going to end right now.  

  
Hux strode down a closed side passage on Observation Deck 6, struggling to catch up with Ren’s long strides. He’d barely crossed paths with the man in weeks, which had been fine before Hux wanted to speak with him. Now he’d spent the last hour just tracking him down, and was no less furious for the effort.

“What are you playing at?” Hux demanded.

Ren finally stopped and stood facing away from Hux for a moment, before slowly turning around. Of course he wasn’t wearing his mask. Hux found it difficult to think, at times, his eyes following the mostly-healed scar from his forehead down to his neck. Hux felt an odd tightness low in his gut, and saw Ren clench his fist. “Explain.”

Hux stumbled a bit on his thoughts, wishing he’d chosen his words more carefully. There were some things he definitely didn’t want Ren getting the wrong idea about, but neither did he feel like addressing them aloud. He was perfectly content to continue on as they had been in the dark every so often without admitting to anything.

“It wasn’t the, er -” He scratched the back of his neck self-consciously and watched Ren narrow his eyes. This was going splendidly. Hux raised his eyes to the ceiling and let out a deep breath.

“You’ve hurt yourself,” Ren observed, changing the subject, and Hux resettled his hand in the small of his back.

“It’s nothing,” Hux muttered. “Blown fuse. It’s not the - the other, you understand, it’s just -” Stars, _spit it out_ , he chastised himself. Maybe you do deserve children’s toys if you can’t just say what you mean. “It’s the eggs,” Hux clarified in a rush, the words coming out in a loud whisper as if they might be overheard. “Stop sending them. They aren’t funny.”

“They aren’t meant to be funny,” Ren said, as if it were obvious. “They’re meant as gifts.”

“I don’t want any gifts from you,” Hux spat out, as if he could make it true by summoning enough bitterness. There were plenty of things he wanted from Ren, and they both knew it. Politeness and friendly gestures were confusing, and not a part of Hux’s fantasies at all. He wanted the rude dismissiveness back, at least in public. Ren wielded an immense amount of power, and Hux knew, deep in a place he didn’t want to admit, that a tiny amount of fear was part of the attraction. An unnerving accident in the Gemon-8 B engine room and a foul temper weren’t enough to change that.      

Ren raised one eyebrow. “The eggs aren’t from me.” Hux crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for him to elaborate. “They’re from my knights,” Ren explained patiently, the words coming slow. “You haven’t guessed?”

Of course Hux had guessed. Even if he hadn’t, the dream with Auspex kriffing handing him one would have sealed the association in his mind. But it was a ridiculous idea, start to finish, and he refused to entertain it. There was absolutely no reason he could think of for the motley group of murderers to send him a damn thing.  

“Obviously not,” Hux lied. “Or I wouldn’t have chased _you_ over half the ship to ask about them.” He unfolded his arms, jamming his hands in his pockets. “Why in the hell would your little group of cultists be sending me gifts?”

“Don’t be insulting,” Ren returned immediately. “It is an ancient order, fierce and devout. We are no one’s cult.”

“Fine,” Hux allowed. “Your knights.” His old sneer returned with the descriptor. “Why would they send me anything?”

“Has no one ever given you a birthday present?” Ren asked, a hint of amusement creeping across his face. “It’s customary on many planets to honor the day one entered the world.”   

Hux bluntly ignored the question. Being born on the eve of a Life Day celebration only made you more likely to be forgotten. Birthdays were pointless besides, a glaring symbol of Republican extravagance. “They’re toys,” Hux rebuffed. “For children. It’s embarrassing.”

“No one’s sent you any toys,” Ren said in a low voice, as if to suggest he was thinking about it now.

“Well then one of them’s hatching!” Hux gestured fruitlessly, trying to convey frustration over something he didn’t even understand. “It - it wiggles. I think it might have chirped.”

“Why don’t you ask them what you should do?”

Hux felt a prickle along his spine. He knew with a terrifying certainty that at least three of _them_ were standing just behind him. His mind itched with questions, but he couldn’t bear the thought of turning around.

“Do you like our gifts?” A hot rush of breath against his neck sent a shiver down to his toes. A touch doubtless meant to be soothing brushed his thoughts, and Hux took a stumbling step away. He knew he had to turn around. There was no other option; Hux couldn’t let Ren’s lackeys know how much they unnerved him. Dredging up just enough courage, he pivoted to face the monster waiting at his back.

It was the tallest one, though not the most imposing. Falx, Hux thought. Unimaginative name, given the gigantic sword always strapped to his back. It was an inelegant weapon, the matte black blade curved and nearly equal in length to a bludgeon-like grip. A swatch of black scale mail shrouded his face from view but left his thin mouth exposed, chalky skin stretched taught across overlong teeth. Bloodless lips stretched back in a rictus grin, and suddenly, terribly, Hux understood. The hallway stretched out before him, but there was no escape.

“Did you carve it yourself?” Hux threw the question out as if composed, swallowing down hot pinpricks of unease.

Falx inclined his head forward in answer, and Hux saw in his mind a delicate set of tools tucked into leather pockets, the sort of instruments that could just as easily bypass a lock as shape bone. Hux would never have thought such a delicate thing could come from those hands, large and calloused, not with such antiquated equipment.  

“Do you like it?” Falx asked again, tilting his head to one side. The dark veil jangled slightly.

“Yes,” Hux admitted, staring down at the floor. He glanced up, but his eyes didn’t make it as far as the knight’s face, catching on the patchwork mess of armor in black and burnished gold. It was beautiful, and distracting, much like the knights themselves. Much like their leader.

The knowledge that had eluded him for weeks finally settled within reach, and Hux closed his eyes around it. It was a simple truth, and one he cursed himself for not seeing sooner. A central part of Life Day on many planets involved the giving and receiving of small tokens. Handmade or carefully chosen, they were often representative of the giver as a sort of remembrance. Hux was suddenly quite certain he was being courted.

He risked a glance around the assembled group, matching gifts to the giver with surprising ease. The crack of lightning, the smell of ozone on the wind - the harsh gleam of sunlight on a frozen moon - she stood just to his left, one hand lightly brushing the pommel of a sword worn at her hip. It was one of a pair, both lengthy and wide, ending in a sudden, harsh diagonal. A broad and battered chestplate covered layers of dark cloth, metal caps showing at her elbows and knees.      

He’d seen her once without her armor, made all the fiercer for it. Fresh off a double shift on the bridge, he’d gone to the Officer’s Training Deck spoiling for a fight. He’d ended up hypnotised by a sparring match between one of his captains and an opponent now curiously familiar.

Phasma faced off against a stocky opponent not quite her height in standard issue PT kit, her loose white slacks and white tank stained with blood. She was grinning. The woman circling her had an impressive collection of tattoos marring skin that gleamed violet in the harsh gymnasium lights. Hux had never seen her before, and immediately judged her one of Ren’s. A ragged black tunic covered what appeared to be horizontal bindings, while loose pants fell to just below her knees. A rat's nest of dirty gray hair escaped a thick hooded veil to tangle past her shoulders. _Voll_ , Hux thought, without the slightest idea of how he knew.

The combatants were evenly matched, blow for blow, for what could have been 5 minutes or an hour. The stranger at last bounced back in a hasty feint, and followed up with a decisive kick. Her heel connecting roughly with Phasma's solar plexus, Hux felt a sympathetic pain in his gut. The Captain fell to the ground with a loud grunt and after a moment tapped out, admitting defeat with a rueful smile. Voll stood over her partner for a moment, turning to face Hux as if newly aware of an unwelcome presence. Her eyes were dark, and he thought he glimpsed a second set of eyelids when she blinked. Then she turned away as if he’d never been there at all, extending a hand to Phasma on the ground. She grabbed it, Voll hauling up her weight without the slightest strain. Phasma’s face was red from exertion, her hair dripped with sweat, and she looked happier than Hux had ever seen her.    

In the present moment, a hooded mask shrouded the knight’s face, hexagonal in shape and divided by a dark purple line. She gave a sharp nod as he wordlessly traced the stone back to her hands, then stalked past him with a hard cuff to his shoulder. Hux staggered for a moment, and heard a loud snort at his expense.

“You,” Hux said, turning to face the source of the jibe. “You sent me the one that moves.”  

Slouched against the wall, the knight inclined his chin in answer. “Everyone needs a friend,” he said with a throaty grumble. He was short, but wide, wild bits of fur protruding from every joint in his armor. A Bothan, perhaps? Hux shivered at the thought, but only a little. “Master Kylo said you were lonely.”

Hux reclassified him unkindly as an overgrown Ranat. The knight’s helmet was squat and rounded, only a thin rectangle cut out to see by. Furred, pointed ears stuck out at the sides, which Hux couldn’t help but see as a tactical mistake. The Morling, Hux thought. That was what the others called him. Not a name, so much as a title, an unknown descriptor.

“Is it - alive?” Hux asked, ignoring the second statement. “Do I need to feed it, or anything?”

His question was met only with harsh laughter as the knight doubled over with amusement. Heavy metal gauntlets dragged the floor, covered all with spikes. “No, emissary,” he answered. “Just talk pretty to it every once in awhile.”

 _Don’t mind him_ , a voice floated through his mind, tranquil, and almost familiar.

“He’s new,” Voll added, grabbing the Morling by the elbow and dragging him away. Hux could hear the spikes on the knight’s boots scratching and squealing along the floor as he went.

Hux remembered, though dimly, the knight he had replaced. A name that meant beyond, he thought, a name that meant haunted. Hux knew he had seen them, stalking the halls beside Ren, but try as he might Hux couldn’t remember any features. He thought a cloak might have billowed out behind them, or that large, sickle-shaped blades might have crossed at their waist, but he could just as easily have been dreaming. He glanced at Ren over his shoulder, sensing that voicing the question might be indelicate.

“Morling has always been with us,” Ren corrected Voll with a frown. “So he will always be, as you are, as I am.” Hux sensed the catechism behind the statement and wisely declined to comment. It seemed a harsh sort of comfort; your allies would never die, and the dead were never your allies.

“Yes,” Voll acknowledged, head bowed, before continuing in her efforts to separate Hux and the laughing knight. Falx seemed to have slipped away while Hux was occupied with philosophy. He glanced back at Ren, who simply nodded.

“Have your questions found answers?” He regarded Hux calmly, head tilted slightly to one side.

“Yes,” Hux replied, “and no.” The Morling had called him _emissary_ , what the hell did that mean? He knew the standard definition, but how did it apply to him? The cuts on his hand had begun to throb, and all Hux wanted was to crawl beneath his sheets and forget every part of this.

“Another time, perhaps.” Ren watched him for a long moment before turning on his heel and stalking away.  

 

Hux had almost made it to the closest bank of lifts when a slight figure jumped soundlessly down from a pipe overhead and matched him on the catwalk, step for step. They were nearly of a height, but Hux had seen this one collapse her thin frame into absurdly small spaces when she wasn’t leaping from one precarious hold to another. She often perched too high above the average crewman to attract any notice, maintaining a grim observation over those who never bothered to look up. Even if they had, the dull metal of her helmet - round over her face but tapering to sharp, curved points - would have helped her blend in. When Ren walked the halls with his second, she sometimes trailed a bit behind, silent and hyperaware. She kept a blaster pistol on one hip, and a sharply curved dagger tucked into her belt. A long chain from the hilt terminated in an object not unlike a child’s spinning top. It looked heavy, and immensely painful.         

“Hello, Rukh,” he offered, not expecting a verbal response. Hux tried to keep the surprise from his tone at having been sought out. The presence of someone he knew to be so deadly shouldn’t have evoked a sense of calm in him, and yet it did. In the strangest way, Hux sort of liked her.  

Holding out a closed fist instead of an answer, she turned it over and opened her fingers to reveal a cream-colored sphere spotted heavily with brown. It hadn’t occurred to him that she would give him one as well.

“Jumping on the bandwagon, are you?” Hux’s attempt at deflection sounded ridiculous in his own ears. Rukh swatted his arm with her left hand, gesturing again with the right until he plucked the egg from her palm. Though somewhat small, it was the heaviest so far. He smelled a sea-salt mist, saw tiny nests lodged impossibly on sheer, white cliffs.

“It won’t hatch,” she said softly, an attempt at reassurance, and Hux caught his breath. “It’s been dead for a very long time.” He blinked, his mind skipping straight past the statement to process the smooth, low voice that had never before spoken a word, at least not to him.

“Thank you,” Hux said, uncertain as to whether he meant the egg or her voice. She nodded once and lazily flipped back over the railing, disappearing from view without another sound. He rolled the calcified sphere around in his hands, wondering what sort of creature still took shelter inside.       

 

  
  
Rounding a corner on his way to a blown main in Sector G1, Hux nearly walked straight into the last person he expected to see. A small group of brown-nosing, freshly-minted officers surrounded their Commander, all dressed in crisp, freshly pressed uniforms. Hux didn’t see a single hair out of place.

“Armitage,” a deep voice boomed out, sound bouncing down the corridor. “You’re looking … well.” The words managed to sound polite while meaning the complete opposite. The older man’s hair had begun to gray at the edges since last Hux saw him, and he thought he might be losing weight.  

“Tal,” Hux acknowledged, dropping the rank. Even dressed down as he was, Sathak had no right to address him by his first name. It grated, and Hux really wished it didn’t.

“I see you’ve found something to occupy all that spare time on your hands,” Tal observed, eyeing the greasy tool belt slung around his waist. Two of the crewmen at his side snickered, one whispering behind his hand to the other.

“Yes, well.” Hux mused, ignoring them. “Everyone needs a hobby. You have yours,” Hux gestured to the bars on his sleeve. “I have mine.”  

The officers went silent. Tal frowned. “Disrespect me again and I’ll have your head for target practice. Supreme Leader may have gone easy on you, you soft, son-of-a-whore, but let me assure you, I will not.”

A growl echoed through the hall, raising the hair on the back of Hux’s neck. The gaggle of promotion-happy officers looked likely to piss themselves. Tal’s eyes went wide, and Hux knew exactly what he would see if he turned around at that moment. Who, he corrected himself. He smiled, letting it grow wide.  

“Lovely seeing you, Sathak,” he said lightly, “but if you’ll excuse me, there’s a power sink that needs my attention. Wouldn’t want the Officer’s Deck to go dark.”

“Of course,” Tal answered faintly, his back stiff. “Wouldn’t dream of keeping you.”

Hux breezed past him and his cadre of shaken lackeys, leaving them for the Morling to decide what to do with them. If the cooling systems in the officer’s quarters went out a few times during the night, well, Hux couldn’t be blamed. It was just a hobby, after all.   

 

Two standard weeks passed before Hux crossed paths with any of the knights again. Unable to sleep, he paced an empty Observation Deck, pausing before the windows every so often to gaze out into the night. He heard a single step behind him and turned, half expecting to find some quivery lackey of recent rank, waiting there with a message. What greeted Hux instead returned him to the present, to his own barely possessed rank and lack of urgency.

The tall knight stood patiently, face turned slightly toward the large transparisteel windows. The rough spikes of their crown tilted like an off-kilter halo, looming over a dark featureless mask. At least, Hux thought it was a mask. It could have been coalesced darkness for all he knew, for all there was light in the large, empty room.

_Hello, emissary._

“Why do you call me that?” Hux asked in lieu of a proper greeting, then bit back his tongue.

_Titles hold great meaning among us._

“Well, I don’t have one,” Hux disagreed. “Not anymore.”

_Then it is time you did._

Cryptic, Hux thought, catching a warm draft of amusement from the knight. Of course they could hear his thoughts. Hux caught himself almost wishing for privacy and winced. If he had any more privacy on this ship, he might as well be on a lifeboat.

A light brush of sympathy was hastily withdrawn, as if the knight had suddenly thought better of it. Instead, they extended a gloved hand with something cradled in their palm. What light filtered through the windows caugh on its smooth surface, shining. Hux stepped forward as if entranced, unable to tell if it was black or blue.

Another egg, though much smaller than the others. Something in it glittered. The knight turned his hand and let it drop, only to remain suspended in midair. Hux stared. It was nothing new, just a Force parlor trick, but he couldn’t look away. A gentle tug on his right arm lifted it parallel to the floor, another nudge turning his hand palm-up. Mercy closed the remaining distance and let the egg drift slowly into Hux’s hand. It was then he realized that it hadn’t been floating at all. A cord extended from a tiny hole in the smaller end of the egg, so thin as to be nearly invisible. Hux felt the suggestion pressing against his skin. Mercy wanted him to wear it.

Hux swallowed, his throat dry. What did it mean? What was he agreeing to if he slipped it around his neck? He couldn’t explain why it didn’t feel like a simple piece of jewelry. It had a substance to it that had nothing to do with its weight. It felt - important.  

 _No agreement_ , Mercy assured him. _No trickery._

“It’s beautiful,” Hux said, tilting it back and forth to catch the ambient glow.

 _It’s you_ , the knight answered.

Hux looked up in surprise. “What do you mean? The others are - they’re symbols.” There was the amusement again, and Hux realised his mistake. He attempted to clarify. “Symbols for them.”   

 _A thousand suns,_ Mercy said, and Hux watched the light pick out tiny flecks of gold against a rich, dark blue. _All the power you deserve._

Hux’s heart stopped along with his breath. He had once thought he deserved everything.

 _Yes_ , Mercy answered, taking a step back from a beam of dim light. _Remember_.

Then they were gone, and Hux was alone with the galaxy in the palm of his hand.

 

The enlisted men wouldn’t spar with him anymore. Hux had started working through the engineering corps for partners, but even they didn’t seem particularly eager after watching their comrades leave bloody and bruised. By and large, they were stronger than the average ship-raised crewman, with better reflexes from avoiding catastrophe, but he still wiped the floor with each and every one of them. When Voll tapped him on the shoulder one evening, he turned to face her with a wicked grin. Fixing his hands with fresh tape, Hux bounced back on his heels, ready for a real fight.    

She gave him one, and he regretted it immensely in the morning. Holding a cold pack to his eye, he tongued at his split lip over breakfast. He decided not to show up for a shift that day, occupying himself instead with the HoloNet and a few beers. Hux would think carefully before agreeing to anything Voll offered in the future. Still, crazy as it might sound, it left him with a vague sense of inclusion. She’d never condescended to challenge him before. Looking down at the beer in his hand, Hux decided he’d had one too many and called it a day.      

 

 

Hux couldn’t sleep. A liberal portion of whiskey hadn’t helped, though he’d resisted downing the rest of the bottle. Perhaps he should reconsider. Rolling over onto one side, he stared up at the blue egg hanging from its chain. He hadn’t worn it yet, though he couldn’t quite explain why. He’d spent a fair amount of time staring at it and rolling it around in his hands. It was cold, never seeming to absorb his warmth.

Maybe, he thought. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to slip the cord over his head. Maybe it would be nice to feel it rest against his solar plexus. Stretching out a hand, Hux lifted the necklace from the section of wall he’d draped it over and slipped his head through the gap. He’d gone to bed without a shirt, and the egg felt cool and comforting against his skin. Lifting it up, he turned the egg around and around to watch the light play off the motes of gold.

He let his eyes drift shut and imagined the dreams that had always come to him, ever since he was small. Dreams of accolades, well deserved. Dreams of standing before a crowd, not to inspire violence, but to inspire loyalty. Bravery. Order. Dreams of a crown. They had nearly been within reach before it all blew up in his face. He’d blamed Ren at first, but his failures hadn’t been any more deliberate than Hux’s own. He’d blamed Snoke, for insisting on firing a second volley too soon, for pushing the weapon past its limits. If only he’d spoken up. If only he thought Snoke would have listened.

But those were pipe dreams, and this was blasphemy.            

A quiet sound like the shuffling of feet pulled Hux from his thoughts. His eyes snapped open to see a figure standing just past the end of his bed, tall, with a crown like a slipping halo.

 _Emissary_.

“I don’t understand what you want from me,” Hux replied to the address.  

_Only what you would give._

“What do I have that could be of use to you?” Prophets, he thought. Killing machines. Hux’s daydreams turned suddenly painful and stuck in his chest. He was not one of them.

 _We would have your voice,_ Mercy answered.

“My voice,” Hux said with a scoff.  

 _And your words_.

The dreams rose in his mind again, the blue oval like a badge of office on his chest. A vision of a crowd as far as the eye could see, all gathered for one purpose. Him.  

“Why are you here?” Hux fiddled with the necklace and Mercy glanced toward it pointedly.

 _You have kept close our gifts,_ Mercy observed.

“Yes,” Hux answered, a bit defensively. “I like them. And they -” He faltered, a flush creeping across his cheeks. “They remind me of somewhere.”

 _Yes_ , the knight echoed. _So they were meant. We would be your home, if you allow it._

Hux didn’t know his fingers were clenched around the egg until it became painful. Still, he didn’t let go. He tracked Mercy’s steps as they crossed from the end of his bed to beside it, asking a question without words. Hux silently told them yes.  

Mercy sat on the edge of the bed, one gloved hand extended across the blankets. _Let us be your solace._

Hux lightly touched the tips of their fingers and silently, again, told them yes.

A hand on his cheek, thumb softly brushing his lips. A hand on his neck, sliding down to his shoulder. A breath caught in Hux’s throat and held. It was easy, easier than it had been with anyone in a very long time. Despite their differences, Hux found he knew what to do.

To be so elaborate, Mercy’s robes slid free from their frame with little effort. They handled the wide sash, careful of the angular crystal points that clustered near their hips. Hux had a glimpse of those shards held between slender fingers, raised to reflect a blinding source of light and then thrown with unerring accuracy. He drew back a bit and didn’t argue. He reached out for the crown, for the mask-that-wasn’t and was rebuffed, Mercy shaking their head.

“I want to see you,” Hux protested. “Let me see you.”

 _Not yet_.

Hux nodded, disappointed but soon better occupied. Hux let his hands rove across their skin, blue-grey, covered with carved whorls and unfamiliar symbols. Some looked like scars, some Hux was certain were deliberate. Two long soft limbs branched out from Mercy’s back and coiled around their arms, leaving their niche to stroke down Hux’s sides. Mercy breathed in as Hux’s fingers traced a winding path across their skin, taking his hand for a brief moment to hold it to their small, nearly flat breasts. Mercy’s nipples were erect, flushed black with blood, and Hux couldn’t keep his fingers from circling them, rubbing them, squeezing.

Mercy made a low, throaty sound and pushed Hux gently onto his back. They pushed his hands up above his head and one tentacle-like appendage curled around his wrists, holding him back without holding him down. It felt safe, secure. Mercy kissed their way along his chest, a long black tongue flicking out from between their lips to tease and taste his nipples. At Hux’s pleased hum, they lingered, stroking, and sucking until he cried out. Those lips, that tongue, proved the mask an illusion and Hux longed to reach out, to touch. Mercy held his arms fast and grazed his nipple with their teeth.

Everywhere Mercy’s tongue lingered, a tingling sensation spread out along his skin. A wordless sense of secondhand pleasure poured into his mind and radiated into his body. Hux had never felt anything like it. A question seemed to hang in the space between them as Hux fixated on the feeling, and Hux answered with an unequivocal yes. Mercy moved down, sliding their tongue into the hollows of his hipbones and down into the crease between his thigh and groin. Hux curled up a bit as their tentacles stretched out a bit too far and then withdrew. For one illuminated moment, they sheathed his cock in their mouth, that amazing tongue working at a vein along the underside. Hux groaned, fisting his hands in the sheets and Mercy wordlessly promised more.  

Crawling back up along his body, Mercy pressed a soft kiss below his ear. Lowering down, they shifted until the angle was just right and pressed pleasure-swollen folds of skin against his cock. Hux shifted up eagerly to slide his rigid cock between them, now generously slick. Wrapping his arms around their back, Hux pulled Mercy close. The tentacles that had held his wrists now wound around his arms, caressing. Mercy rocked against him, dipping down to press wet kisses up along his sternum, hot breaths short and quick against his skin.

Rational thought mostly gone out the window, Hux briefly wondered if Mercy wanted any sort of penetration from him, if that were even possible. He’d never met anyone like them, in every way he could think. Mercy answered the question by sitting back up, hands braced on his shoulders, and knees firmly placed to either side of his hips. Softly pebbled flesh pressed against his entrance, unseen, rubbing and massaging until every last thing in Hux relaxed and he forgot the question. Something moved across his balls to slide up his hip, and Hux tilted his head to see.

A smaller tentacle brushed across his skin, a flared tip not unlike a spade on the end of a flexible stalk. It lifted up to show him what lay beneath. Small bumps and ridges covered the underside, supple and round, explaining the incredible sensations currently flooding the lower half of Hux’s body. He threw his head back, awash in it, as the first tip gently pressed in past his muscles. Yes, he thought, please, keep doing that, and Mercy obliged. Hux could feel the head twist and curl up at the sides as it slipped just barely in and then back out again. It was slippery, easing the passage, and before long the bulbous head was completely inside. Hux rolled his hips, Mercy’s warm and wet folds still pulling him in, tiny lashes along the sides caressing sensitive skin. He wasn’t sure how long he would last, his balls high and tight, his cock twitching with pleasure.

The second head curled around to slide against his stretched ring of muscle, seeking entrance. It folded up next to the first, making short, gentle thrusts until Hux could open wide enough to admit it. They rubbed together inside his passage, twisting, stretching, until Hux’s hips began to snap up and back, his cock ready to burst. One of them found the sweet bundle of nerves that short circuited his brain and he was lost, coming hard and fast to soak them both.                                    

When he began to come back down, light bleeding back in at the edges, Hux reached down between them and stroked the swollen crests. Mercy moaned, thrusting against his hand. The tentacles still pushed and pulled inside his ass and Hux could barely feel them filling out, changing shape. Mercy pressed down against his fingers, grinding on his slowly softening cock. Hux could feel it, feel the way they felt, triune spikes of pleasure as the muscles spasmed against his hand in rippling waves and the first flared head jerked with its release. Mercy cried out, low and guttural, while a hot rush spilled inside him. Hux thrust back, rhythmic, and it wasn’t very long before the second joined its twin.     

Arching back, Mercy breathed ragged and deep, still plunging weakly in and out of Hux. Everything began to slow and Hux felt an overwhelming sense of exhaustion. Easing their grip on Hux’s shoulders, Mercy hovered over him for a moment, sweat dripping down as if from a swatch of hair he couldn’t see. Hux reached up as if to stroke their face, then wrapped his hand around the side of their neck instead. Mercy murmured a sort of approval.

Sliding off to one side, Mercy lay next to Hux and hooked a strong, muscular leg over his own. They shoved at his shoulder, and Hux rolled over with a small laugh. Cuddling wasn’t a universal concept - in fact, he rarely enjoyed it himself - but right now it was exactly what he wanted. Pleasantly sore, he ran his hand down Mercy’s arm when it wrapped around his waist. It was easy. It was familiar.

Mercy’s lips brushed softly against the back of his neck and Hux gave a contented sigh. _Master Kylo said you liked that_ , Mercy explained, and Hux stiffened.

“Will you be discussing _this_ with ‘Master’ Kylo?” he asked, a bit harshly.

 _He is beside me_ , Mercy answered. _Watching._

Hux turned in Mercy’s arms, tilting his head back. “We’re the only ones here,” he said, trying not to make it a question, trying to keep the shock from his tone.

 _In my quarters_ , Mercy clarified. _We watch over each other when we dream, or project._

“When you dream,” Hux said flatly. “That’s all this is, then?”

 _Why do you devalue it as such?_ Mercy’s voice in his mind sounded hurt, and Hux knew he should regret the words, but he didn’t. Ren was watching them, right now. Ren might as well have been in the room with them while they -

It felt wrong, and it didn’t. He felt sick. “Why didn’t you come here yourself?” Hux countered. Maybe it was too human a concern for them to understand.

 _You are not yet ours_ , Mercy tried to explain.

“Let me wake up,” Hux said numbly. “Please.”

A long moment of silence greeted his request, but then, _Yes._ Mercy squeezed him around the middle and pressed a fluttering kiss to his cheek before drifting away.

  
Hux woke up alone, messy and shivering and miserable. He nursed a bottle of brandy for a while, hunched over the table and feeling sorry for himself. Was it really such a big deal? He’d never been one for voyeurism, but there was a first time for everything. Except, a voice chimed in from the back of his mind. Except this wasn’t the first time. Those nights when you felt his arms around you, those nights when he got you off -  he wasn’t alone. The others were there. The others were watching. Maybe it got _them_ off. Hux hadn’t known anyone could project themselves that way, but there were a lot of things he hadn’t experienced before Kylo Ren.

He tried to take another swig from the bottle, but found it empty. Hux put his head in his hands, pressing the meat of his palms against his eyes. He’d always been a bit reactionary. _I’m sorry_ , he thought, wondering if anyone would hear. No one answered him, just a hollow echo in his own mind. _I don’t care, I don’t mind._ Still nothing. _I was stupid, and I’m just - I’m sorry._

It was long minutes later when he finally heard a single word in the empty dark.  

 _Yes._         

 

Slender arms wrapped around his neck in the dream, long delicate fingers tracing his collarbone. She sat behind him on the bed, propped up against a riot of pillows, and he slumped down, his head resting on her shoulder. “You’re kind of an idiot,” Rukh said, a gentle pat on his head easing the blow.

“I know,” Hux replied.

“We love you, all of us.” She sounded earnest, and something in Hux twinged. He laughed it away.

“Not all of you.”

“Yes,” Rukh insisted, this pat on his head much harder this time. “Or we wouldn’t have asked you.”

“Asked me what?” Hux asked, and only partially out of petulance.

Rukh sighed. “To the Spring Dance,” she said flippantly. Hux tried to pull away, but she tugged him back. “To join with us,” she explained.  

“I don’t mean to be rude,” Hux started, knowing he could only be so bold and so stupid because he was half-made of Corellian brandy. “But I don’t want to, er, ‘join’ with all of you.”

“Thank the stars,” Rukh muttered, followed up with a heavy sigh. “I don’t even like things like that. Voll is enjoying the company of someone prettier than you. Morling doesn’t care for humans, and beyond that I don’t really want to find out.”  

“All right,” Hux said, feeling a bit better about the whole thing. She’d left one out, though, and Hux couldn’t help but ask. “Falx?”

“Falx is old, like me,” Rukh humored him. Hux blinked. The skin on her hands was soft and dark, unwrinkled. She still wore her mask, but blue groups of braids bunched together and spilled down her back without a hint of gray. The way they fanned out at the ends, they almost looked like feathers. “I’m not human, you know,” she added wryly, apparently spying on his thoughts. Hux decided to let it go. To just - let everything go.

“Good,” she said, still eavesdropping. “Now go back to sleep. You’re drunk.”      

 

It felt like forgiveness when Hux woke to see a familiar egg sat on the center table. It looked as if it belonged, as if it had always been there. Purple and green and carved with the wind, brilliant scales flaring in the light of a passing star. The colors whirled and beamed, casting shadows of themselves on the walls.  

It felt like a decision. Maybe, Hux thought. Maybe he finally knew what he wanted. Maybe he was beginning to let himself want what he needed. Maybe, just maybe, it was time to come out from the prison he’d made.

 

  
  
The last box to arrive was also the largest. It was a polished wood rectangle, not left outside his rooms, not on the kitchen table, no - it was sitting on the end of his bed when he came home.  Hux had the absurd thought that he was glad he had made up his bed that morning before he left. _As if it mattered_ , he thought to himself. As with so many other things, now, Hux usually didn’t bother.  

Hux sat down beside the box and turned it longways to face him. The insignia of the Order was embossed upon the lid and flecked with dark red paint. It wasn’t locked. His thumb fit perfectly into the hollow beneath the heavy lid, and he lifted it up to see what waited inside. He swallowed, his throat dry. If Kylo hadn’t been very clear that none of this was a prank -

Hux closed the lid and went to the conservator for a beer, then changed his mind in favor of a large bottle of whiskey. Hux had left it sealed in the cabinet for at least three weeks; after seeing the contents of the box, he was definitely due for a drink. He took a long pull from the bottle, pacing from one end of the room to the other. When the lights grew hazy and the furniture began to blur just a bit around the edges, Hux sat back down.

Opening the lid again, he stared down at its contents. Three eggs of varying sizes sat cradled in a soft, velvety sponge, the largest in the center. Carved from black stone, the smallest was around 4 cm and the largest looked to be nearly 8. A band of smooth raised bumps circled the small one at its widest point. The one sat to the far right was a bit larger, and carved with raised lines that spiraled up the side. Embossed upon the largest, taking pride of place at the center, was again the symbol of the First Order.

Below the eggs, a rounded channel ran nearly the length of the entire box, and contained nothing but a small holochip. The stars only knew what sort of message it contained. Hux was fairly certain he knew what it had replaced, and the idea traveled straight down below his belt with a quickness. It was a control wand.

Hux knew exactly what these eggs were for - at least, he’d heard stories. They were a training set, often given by ancient royalty in certain regions to their spouses or concubines. By accepting them, not only was the paramour sealing their status as favorite, they were also entering a somewhat political agreement. In striving to please their lover in all ways, the master’s work became their work, their goals and dreams the master’s dreams. Romantic nonsense.

Hux had seen another set like it at an importer’s once on shore leave, almost certainly a fakery. It was marked as fragile, for one thing, and included a chintzy necklace clearly of recent make. The arrangement, so Hux had read, had later evolved to include a coy public display. A favored pet would display a piece of specially designed jewelry to match the hidden stone they wore elsewhere. An amaralite collar, perhaps, or earrings carved from jiang; something precious but not so dear as to break the royal coffers. An entire symbolic language had developed around the custom that Hux absolutely did not find fascinating. It had just been on the HoloNet one day, some featured article or documentary. That was all.    

Complicated history aside, Hux was intrigued. He couldn’t mistake Ren’s intent in sending them - unlike the other fragile, more colorful eggs, these were neither antiques not baubles for display. These eggs were clearly designed to be used. Hux lifted the middle one, running his finger along the ridge that coiled around the side. He felt a tug from the small metal catch on his tunic that kept his sleeve from rolling down while working. A magnet had been cleverly set into the base of the egg, and Hux would bet into the others as well.      

That was why Ren had taken the wand. Hux wasn’t allowed to try them out on his own. Without a powerful and properly shaped magnet on the other end, Hux wouldn’t reliably be able to remove the eggs himself. Hells, even with the magnet he still might get himself into trouble. Hux wasn’t foolish enough to try, no matter how - interested - he was getting in the idea. Popping the chip into his datapad, Hux watched Ren’s image appear in full dress, mask and all.

“You will arrive at my quarters by 2100 hours tomorrow,” the figure intoned. “You will be fully prepared.” Hux snorted a little at that. The figure remained still on screen for a few seconds before issuing one further command, almost as an afterthought. “Bring the box.”

Of course he would bring the box. Now Hux was nearly laughing. _Fully prepared?_ What a preposterous message. Once the lights were off and the alarm set, however, Hux found himself mulling over Ren’s words as if tuned to repeat. He wasn’t sure it was possible to be prepared enough for whatever Ren intended. That night, there were no comforting touches in the dark, no whispers in his mind. Just the unrelieved stretch of time until the primary shift began below decks and Hux could once again remember who he was.                 

 

Hux paced around the corridors a bit on his way to the half deck that housed Kylo Ren and his knights. He couldn’t stand the thought of being early, but even now, it just wasn’t in him to be late. Hux hadn’t been here since before the disaster, but he expected to find the suite of rooms as austere as ever. He was mostly right.

The doors slid open as he approached. Ren stood waiting near the center of the room, his mask off, only the hood up to shroud his expression. He glanced down at the box in Hux’s hands and nodded. “You may leave it there for now,” he said, gesturing to a long table pushed up against the wall. Once his eyes adjusted to the dimness, Hux could see past a small divider into the second room with a bed. A very large bed. The last time he’d been here, Hux recalled, it was rather narrow. That seemed like a promising development.

“Decided to change your mind about the toys?” Hux asked coyly, cover an anxious, tremoring fear.

“You asked, after all.” Kylo sounded smug.

“Technically I didn’t,” Hux corrected. “But all the same I have to say I’m - intrigued.”

“I’m glad you finally decided to accept them,” Ren said, turning away from Hux to a triangular viewing panel to watch the stars drifting by.

“I never turned any of them away,” Hux said in confusion. “Well, all right, I was a bit concerned about the one that moved. But I did keep it.”

“Not the eggs,” Ren said, a hint of warmth coloring his tone. “Although I’m glad you like them as well. I meant my knights.”

“Yes, well,” Hux fumbled. “Some of them were - fairly persuasive.” _We would be your home, if you allow it._

“Yes,” Ren answered, somehow addressing both statements in one word. “It’s all right for you to like them, you know.”

“I don’t like anyone.” Hux sniffed a little, crossing his arms.  

“Oh?” Ren turned back around from the windows wearing a slight smirk. “Then why are you here?” He took a few steps forward, hands linked behind his back.

“Well,” Hux started, full of false bravado but unable to crush the nervousness in his veins. “You can’t seem to keep your hands off me from half a ship away. I thought I’d see what you could do with them up close.”

Ren’s smirk only deepened. A hand caressed Hux’s face from meters out and he turned into it. “Come on now,” Hux murmured. “You’re not even trying.”  

“Hux,” Ren asked, suddenly sounding serious. “Will you stay?”

Blinking back his confusion, Hux wasn’t sure how to answer. “Well,” he stammered, feeling a blush creep into his cheeks. Damn him. “I did hope you wouldn’t kick me out after you were done with me, but it’s sweet of you to ask.”

“You misunderstand me,” Ren corrected. “My order is not incomplete, and yet we are missing something. Will you stay with us?”

“Missing something?” Hux was hopelessly confused. “What do I have to do with -”

 _Your voice_ , he heard repeated, blue and grey and scarred. _Your words_.

Oh. Hux glanced around the apartment, but didn’t see anyone else present. Now, of course, he knew how little that meant.   

 _Your sight_. The silent voice came from another direction and Hux turned, unable to stop the motion. Brittle, chalk, and nowhere to be found.

“Yes,” Ren answered the unspoken question. “Voice, words, sight. Your mind.”

“I’m flattered,” Hux said. “But I feel a bit like I’m being dissected.”  

 _Literal_ , another chimed in, small and sanguine. Hux could hear the fluttering of a multi-chambered heart. _Pragmatic._  

“Do you understand?” Ren asked, and Hux shook his head. “I need - we need a tactician. We need an envoy. Will you stay with us?”

“Are you mad?” Hux said, taken aback. “You don’t want me. My plans, my strategies - even my speeches were never good enough.”

“Of course they were,” Ren insisted angrily, though Hux knew it wasn’t directed at him.  

“I’m not -” Hux started, then stopped, shaking his head. “I’m not like you. I don’t have the - “ Hux gestured grandly, at a loss. You see? He wanted to ask. My words just aren’t what you think.

“No,” Ren replied. “You are not gifted in the Force. That is exactly why we need you. Auspex is a skilled seer, he can reach into the distant past and far into the future. The Morling only sees as far as his next kill. I see what might yet be, but it isn’t always enough.” He stepped forward intently, closing most of the distance. “You see what is,” Ren pointed out. “You see what can be, and you see exactly how to do it.”   

“I didn’t see far enough for Snoke,” Hux countered. “I didn’t see you. What makes you think anything will be different now?”

“Because,” Ren said matter of factly. “Snoke prepared you for this, though I don’t think that was his intent.” He began to pace in a small, curved line, choosing his words carefully. “He starved you of all sight and sound, of touch, of warmth, to test you. To see what you could become. It wasn’t a punishment, Hux, even though you wanted one. He was, in a way, gifting you to us.”

“Gifting me,” Hux replied with a flat sort of disbelief. He took a step back toward the door. “As if I’m just some doll to be given away once he tired of it.”

“No,” Ren said sharply, shaking his head. “Nothing like that.”

“A pet, then?” Hux asked.  

“Have we treated you as a pet?” Kylo asked, more admonishment than question.

Images flickered in and out of Hux’s mind, some hazy and soft, others painfully clear. Unseen hands working him just up to the edge and keeping him there, miserable, ecstatic. A vision of Spex’s mask pressed cold against his skin, of Rukh’s arms around his neck, skinny fingers stroking his bare collarbone. His hands tracing the ritual scars that covered Mercy’s body from head to toe, the contrast of ethereal skin against his own, pale and freckled and flushed.

“Snoke foolishly made you think he didn’t need you anymore,” Ren said quietly. “But I do. Hux,” he continued with a terrifying earnestness. “I asked for you.”

“What?” Clenching his fists, Hux felt a terrible gap open up behind his ribcage. “You had me cast into that void, you took my title and my command?”

“No,” Ren insisted, throwing his hands forward in exasperation. “Snoke was already set on that course, but the test was flawed. He would have wasted you, left you to rot on this ship until you drank yourself to death, or - or worse.” Ren stopped, pacing a few steps in the other direction and flexing his fingers. “Sometimes, during my training -  when I would find a moment of calm, I would hear you. I saw you in that place, frightened and alone. Sometimes I saw what was to come once we returned, and I - I did not want the future that I saw for you.” He glanced down at the floor, seeming oddly self-conscious.  

“Oh,” Hux said, defensively crossing his arms over his chest.  “How considerate. _You_ didn’t want me to die in a puddle of my own vomit.”

“I spoke to you sometimes, in the void.” Ren continued, not acknowledging Hux’s barb. “To tell you that you weren’t alone. That I was with you, that we were all with you. Did you hear me?”

“I heard voices,” Hux admitted after a bleak moment, looking down at his hands. “From time to time, but I didn’t think I could trust them. How can you trust anything in that kind of darkness?”

Ren smiled, a real smile, as if his pupil had finally twigged on to the lesson. Hux would have given away another command to not feel the warmth in his chest, the tingling in his cheeks that his smile evoked.  

“That is the only place you can put your trust,” Ren concluded. “In the darkness, and in us.”

“It was you, then,” Hux said lightly, the question answered long before now. “Holding me. Keeping me.”

“Of course,” Ren assured him. “I would have, before, but it wasn’t time.”

“Decidedly not,” Hux said, scuffing one boot along the floor. It was ridiculous, he shouldn’t feel badly for not always wanting what Ren offered. No one and no place was ever static. Changes came with every motion, every step. Ren simply nodded, and Hux sensed no judgement from him.

“You’re the only one who doesn’t use my name,” Ren said instead. Hux almost didn’t follow the subject change. “Ren is simply a title. You can call me Kylo.”   

“I thought this was a bit more formal than that,” Hux said, meaning it as a joke but sounding a little too serious.

“It is,” Ren answered. “And it isn’t.”

“Cryptic. I see what you mean, you know,” Hux said. “You do need someone a bit more grounded.”

“It’s something that must be felt,” Ren clarified. “Do you trust me?”  

“Yes,” Hux answered, a bit surprised to find that it was true. He did trust Ren - trusted Kylo. He trusted all of them. What signs and wonders, he thought.

Crossing to the table, Kylo opened the box and ran his hands over the objects inside. Hux realized the sense of anticipation he felt wasn’t his alone. He’d never tried anything like this, though he had to admit to watching some holos with eggs that looked a bit more real. This was different, he reminded himself, and was startled at the response.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Kylo offered slyly.

“That’s, er,” Hux fumbled, a bit dumbstruck. If the Force could do _that_ , he didn’t want to know. “That’s very considerate. Maybe not this time.” This time, he thought, wishing he could step on his lips to keep them closed. This was obviously some sort of ritual for the knights. He couldn’t assume there would be a next time.

“Of course there will be,” Kylo replied, a bit demanding. Hux was growing accustomed to the way that Kylo responded to his thoughts, and he hated it a little. “Come here.” It wasn’t a suggestion, and Hux didn’t say no. Crossing to stand near the table, he shifted his weight from one hip to the other.  

“Don’t be afraid,” Kylo advised him roughly. Even without the helmet, the words shivered across his skin, rattling deep. Hux nodded, and promised he would try. Kylo cupped his face in his hands and brushed his lips across Hux’s forehead. Hux breathed out a soft, contented sound. When had he become this person, so easily undone by the lightest of touches, the barest of attention?

 _In the void_ , a voice answered him, and Hux knew the answer, knew well before the knight spoke, but he nodded at the shared understanding. _You are better for it._ Hux wasn’t sure he agreed, but now wasn’t the time to argue.   

Kylo’s fingers were busy, stroking down his neck and across his shoulders before sliding down to the hem of his shirt. Running his hands up under the fabric, Kylo carefully slipped it over his head. He bent to press his lips to the hollow where Hux’s neck met his collarbone.  

“We’ve waited a long time for this,” Kylo said, stroking down Hux’s freshly exposed back. “Even Auspex did not know how you would decide.”    

“Someone has to keep you guessing,” Hux murmured, only half aware of his own words.

Kylo laughed against his neck, soft and breathy. Hux’s eyes fluttered shut and he felt a tingle beginning in his limbs. He leaned his head to one side, Kylo’s hair tickling his cheek. Kylo’s hands slid down his sides and ran along his waistband, fingers dipping beneath it. Hux inhaled and bit his lip as his stomach flipped over. Soon those fingers were working the buttons open and rubbing gently against his stiffening cock through the fabric.       

Humming at the sensation, Hux was more than ready when Kylo gave his trousers a gentle tug and backed them up until reaching the bed. “Do you have the rod?” Hux asked a bit breathlessly. Kylo raised one eyebrow and Hux nearly bit his tongue clean off. “You know what I meant.”

“I don’t need the control rod,” Kylo answered with a smile that looked nearly predatory. It changed the shape of his scar, redefining him, and Hux was hypnotized. Stretching out his arm, one of the eggs floated up from the box and traveled through the air until stopping a few centimeters shy of Kylo’s hand. The egg spun slowly, rocking a bit from side to side and Hux swallowed hard. _Oh_. “I just wanted you to think about it,” Kylo explained. “The possibilities.”

“I think there are rather more without it,” Hux observed, and Kylo smirked.

“I agree.” Letting the egg hang in midair, Kylo returned to Hux’s trousers and slid them down over his hips. He didn’t really have any ‘good’ pants, so Hux had worn regulation. Kylo didn’t seem disappointed. They went next, Kylo pulling them forward to free his cock before shoving them down. He took a good look at it, standing erect from a nest of curly, light red hair. Running one palm down his shaft, just enough to draw a soft moan from Hux’s lips, Kylo pulled him close.

For a moment, Hux thought Kylo might decide to stay fully clothed. He rubbed his cock against Kylo’s robes, rolling his hips forward. His hope was that Kylo might consider the potential mess and change his mind. Kylo only pressed his mouth against Hux’s hair, then lifted the necklace and pulled it over his head. When Hux made a small sound of complaint, Kylo explained. “If I choke you,” he said, “It won’t be with this.” Hux’s mouth dropped open and he knew his eyes had grown wide. His cock twitched hard at the thought.       

Unclasping his cloak from one shoulder, Kylo took a short step back and tossed it over the back of a chair. His belt was next, then the tunic slid easily over his head. Hux sat down on the bed and watched him strip with obvious interest. A shirt with rucked up fabric lay beneath the tunic, and Kylo opened a series of clasps before shrugging out of it.

Glorious, Hux thought, forgetting to feel any shame at his reaction. Beneath his ritual attire, Kylo was muscular and well-defined. He couldn’t wait to get his mouth on Kylo’s nipples, his tongue into the grooves of that sculpted abdomen. Hux reached out and hooked his fingers beneath Kylo’s waistband, pulling him closer. There was a confounding tie, and then some buttons, but Hux managed to work them all open with a quickness.  

“Do you sleep in all this?” he asked, gratified to feel Kylo’s own erection through his trousers. Hux couldn’t imagine bothering with so many layers when armor wasn’t necessary.

“Not always,” Kylo answered, shifting his hips to give Hux better access.

And not when you’re with me, Hux thought to himself. Pulling Kylo’s trousers down, they pooled at his feet, and he kicked them away. He wasn’t wearing any pants beneath them, and Hux almost laughed before catching it. Kylo’s dick was nothing to laugh at, at Hux felt his mouth water just looking at it. The neatly trimmed black hair surrounding it came as a surprise. Hux supposed it might be out of consideration, then wondered just how often Kylo got his dick sucked. That wasn’t a question, he thought a bit frantically. I don’t need to know that.

Leaning forward, Hux ran his tongue from root to tip. Kylo drew in a sharp breath and rested his hand on Hux’s head, pulling him closer. Emboldened, Hux swirled his tongue around the glans, then took the head into his mouth and lightly sucked. Resting one hand on Kylo’s hip, he slid a little ways down the shaft, not ready to take the entire thing. Kylo inched forward, pressing in before moving back. Hux wrapped his hand around the base and gave a few short strokes before pulling off. Glancing up, Kylo’s expression was extremely gratifying.      

Leaning forward, Kylo rested his hands against the mattress and Hux scooted back obligingly. He levered himself down and Hux rested a hand at the back of Kylo’s neck. Dipping his head, Kylo licked Hux’s nipple, then dragged his teeth so lightly across Hux thought he might have imagined it. He rubbed at the other, circling it, flicking at it from below. Hux’s hips jerked up and he rubbed his erection against Kylo’s, feeling a drop of precome slide down to slick the motion.

Pushing up a bit, Kylo reached for a small tube that Hux hadn’t noticed on the bedside table. Working his way down Hux’s chest and abdomen with his tongue, Kylo settled over his groin. Hooking his arms beneath Hux’s knees, he lifted them up and back. Hux complied, holding them there when Kylo’s hands left for better things. He rolled back to give Kylo as much access as he needed, knowing how it made him look and not caring one bit.

Hux heard Kylo slicking up his fingers and tried to relax the sudden tension it provoked. He arched his back at the first touch of cold, wet digits against his entrance, his head finding a place on the pillow. They pushed and prodded, a little rough, a little too fast. Hux let out a ragged breath. Yes, he thought. Like that. Kylo pushed one finger in and Hux couldn’t help tightening around it. He thought he heard a laugh, somewhere in the back of his mind. Hux pushed against it, squeezing his muscles to be able to relax them, drawing Kylo’s finger in up to the second digit.

After sliding back out, Hux heard Kylo lubing up again. When his fingers returned, he shoved one inside and rotated it, forcing it down to the last joint. It burned, and Hux groaned. Don’t stop, he thought. The impression he received in return was that Kylo had no intention of doing so anytime soon. Another finger soon joined the first, teasing at the rim to widen it before working its way inside. Kylo thrust in deep, stretching the digits out wide before pulling back out, crooking them up as he went.

The moan Hux let out was loud and tremulous, embarrassing and not, all at once. He was beginning to get used to contradictions. A few more swift penetrations, another stretch, and Kylo gestured toward the egg, still floating above the bed. It would have been hilarious in another situation. Eager to feel it inside as Kylo drew it down, he canted up his hips. Getting a better look while Kylo covered the egg in a generous layer of lube, Hux felt his muscles give a twitch. Four centimeters suddenly seemed a lot larger than they had in his kitchen.

“You’re doing well,” Kylo said, and Hux found it a bit easier to relax. Weak, he thought. Pushover. So what. Kylo pressed the narrow end to his hole and he pushed back, feeling the warm, burning stretch as it moved inside. Stars, it felt big. It wasn’t, Hux reminded himself. You can do this, you can take it. The ridge of bumps at its widest point rubbed against his rim and he gasped. Kylo rotated the egg around, giving him time. It slipped inside with a sudden pop and Hux let out a grunt. It felt hot, and heavy, and full.

Rolling his hips, Hux clenched around it, adjusting to the strangeness. He hadn’t often had a cock in his ass, and the plugs he’d tried as a novelty hadn’t filled him quite this way. Kylo pressed inside with two fingers, pushing the egg in a bit deeper. The first brush against his prostate made him squirm and claw at the sheets. Deeper still, Kylo withdrew his hand and climbed back up the bed. Hux clutched at him, wrapping his arms around his back. Kylo’s hip brushed his straining cock and Hux gave a drawn out whimper. Leaning down, Kylo kissed him full on the mouth.

Hux opened to it, letting Kylo’s tongue slide where it wanted. The egg suddenly twisted inside him, the bumps on the side rolling across his most sensitive spot. Hux cried out at the sensation, electric and just this side of painful. He saw stars in the dim light and rocked helplessly up against Kylo’s groin. He felt Kylo’s erection as it slid against his own, hot and hard and a little wet. He thrust up again, the egg still spinning, the overwhelming pleasure unceasing. His arms shook around Kylo’s sides, not quite meeting across his back. His thighs quivered, his thrusts growing uncontrollable.

Kylo gripped him by the ass and lifted him up until Hux’s legs wrapped around his waist. “First one,” he whispered, pushing the egg back and forth, the cruelest sort of tease as Hux’s prostate throbbed, his cock leaked and jerked, and his balls pulled up tight. Kylo ground down against him and that was it, his cock pulsing, his ass clenching, the stars bright and burning in his sight. Kylo slowly rocked the egg back and forth, drawing out the feeling. Hux let out sounds he didn’t know he could make as the muscle contractions gradually slowed, leaving him spent.        

  
Kylo made sure it was a long night. He let Hux take a shower after slowly, so slowly removing the first egg, drawing out a few more pulses of come. He fingered him beneath the water - real water, a luxury Hux never would have imagined from someone so ascetic. His strokes under the spray as he let it run cold were nothing short of mean. Kylo’s erection had flagged, but only a little, and Hux pushed back against him as he slid his cock between Hux’s slippery cheeks. Asceticism must have its advantages, Hux thought, wondering just how long he could keep it up. Kylo made sure he found out.     

Damp and clean, wrapped up in an immense towel, Hux wanted nothing more than to curl up in Kylo’s bed and sleep. Kylo allowed it, but only briefly, waking Hux up with a pinch to his nipple and a cold, wet finger pressed inside. He mumbled and groaned his way to wakefulness, automatically clenching down. Hux didn’t know how long Kylo spent working him open again, stretching him with his fingers and then his hand, stopping just sort of a fist. It could have been hours. It could have been days.    

Hux hadn’t eaten much recently out of a frankly embarrassing nervousness, and after some internal debate, he’d given in and requisitioned a few supplies from Medical. It felt unusual, being first so full and then so empty, but now Hux was profoundly glad of it. When Kylo breached him with the second egg, Hux worked hard against it, pulling it in deep. Kylo pushed it further still, then dragged it back down, twisting it to let Hux feel the spirals along the side. He felt them, oh did he feel them, in ways he would never forget. It took time and patience to work him up to orgasm again, but Kylo was persistent. Thrusting in with his fingers, ghosting his hand along Hux’s aching cock, it built and built until he was dripping, writhing and desperate.

Then, Kylo took his hand away. Stilled the movement of the egg inside him. Pulled a cry out from somewhere deep inside that Hux hadn’t known existed. “Please,” he begged. “Oh, please, let me,” but Kylo gave him a slow, wicked smile and shook his head. _No_.

 _Not yet_.

A tight restriction wrapped around his balls, unseen but intensely felt. Leaving Hux there on the bed, curled up on his side, hips twitching, Kylo walked away. Moving to stand beside the table, he lifted the largest egg from the box and turned it in his hand, running his thumb over the embossed design. Hux watched him, eyes watering, blinking back pain and frustration. He wanted it, wanted to prove something by it, but he wasn’t sure it was possible.

“Oh, Hux,” Kylo said quietly. “Anything is possible.”

  
After pushing, and pulling, and sounds that Hux would deny making for the rest of his life, the second egg was out. He stared at the third one in Kylo’s hand where he perched on the side of the bed. “I can do it,” Hux said, delirious, his voice almost a rasp. “For you. I can do it for you.”

“For me?” Kylo asked, raising one eyebrow. “I thought this was about you.”

“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Hux’s face felt hot. His entire body was shivering but not with cold. The words came from some place inside him he’d never been. “To break me with it? To make me yours?”

“You’re already mine,” Kylo murmured, stroking sweat damp hair back from Hux’s brow. “I didn’t have to break you.”

“Someone else did that for you,” Hux muttered, beginning a downward slide that threatened to engulf him in a terrible, dark place.

“He didn’t break you either,” Kylo insisted, lying down beside him. He pulled Hux back against him, pressing a kiss to the top of his spine. “He stripped you of yourself so that you could be remade.”

“Is that what you’re doing?” Hux asked, shivering. “Remaking me?”

 _Yes_ , came a voice in his mind.

 _No_ , answered another.

“I don’t understand,” Hux said, feeling Kylo’s hands rove across his skin. That, at least, made sense.  He didn’t need thinking, only feeling. Only touch.

 _We have watched you for so long_ , and Hux knew the owner of that voice, could almost feel it brush across his skin.

 _Missed you,_ and the sound of absent feathers. _Waited._

Hux leaned back, resting his head on Kylo’s shoulder. Thoughts, images, touch, all mingled in his mind, his chest. He had not been broken, but instead, broken down. Unmade, reduced to his component parts. It had not been Snoke that pulled him out of his prison, quieted his mind, let him dream. It had been Kylo, whose hand slid lightly across his hip and down into the crease beside his thigh. It had been all of them, drawing him from darkness into darkness, pulling him back from emptiness.

 _We are glad,_ the voices said, and Hux whispered, “So am I.”  

_We will hold you, as he holds you._

_We are solace, home._

“Yes,” Hux said, agreeing to everything, “yes. Don’t go.”

  
Hux might have slept, he wasn’t sure. Might have dreamed. It was hard to tell what was real and what wasn’t inside these rooms. There was no chronometer, and he had stopped wearing one months ago. An arm wrapped tight around his waist, a comfortable weight draped across his back. He was safe.    

“Kylo,” he whispered, turning over. He was deep asleep, and beautiful. Sliding out from beneath his arm, Hux rose from the bed and headed to the refresher. It had been hours, and as a release, this one felt almost as good as another. His cock was dark from being denied, and Hux resisted the urge to stroke it back to hardness. Splashing water on his face from the sanitizer, Hux regarded himself in the mirror. He was still a bit flushed, his hair a hopeless mess. He didn’t actually mind.     

A figure appeared behind him in the glass and Hux jumped, well startled. A soothing touch brushed through his hair as two arms wrapped around his waist. Hux thought loudly about the last egg as Kylo leaned in to kiss his cheek.

“Do you think I’m stretched enough,” Hux asked boldly, leaning back against Kylo’s shoulder.

“No,” Kylo said honestly, the word warm against Hux’s skin.  

“Hmm,” Hux mused, pressing his lips to Kylo’s neck. “You’ll just have to work harder, then, won’t you?”

“If it’s too much,” Kylo said slowly, clearly uncomfortable with the kindness, with asking. Hux brought his fingers to Kylo’s mouth, stopping his words.   

“I want to,” Hux said, and Kylo smiled. _Greedy_.

“Yes,” Hux answered the unspoken sentiment. Two, he was learning, could play that game.

 

If he thought the second egg was difficult, Hux was utterly unprepared for the third. It was huge, monstrous, and from the moment Kylo began pushing it inside, Hux nearly begged him to stop. He didn’t, enduring the stretch, the white hot pain, the burning as his muscles tried to clench and couldn’t. They went slow, and slippery, and wet, Kylo stopping to let him breathe through it.

Waves of pleasure overran his conscious mind, thought dragged away by the undertow. The entire universe was only this moment, out of time, suspended. Kylo lay beside him, hands ranging across his chest, his stomach, tugging on small clumps of hair. Lazy strokes along Hux’s cock kept him grounded in his body, but only just. It was the Force pressing into him, tilting the egg back and forth, holding the lube inside. Kylo would stop every so often to check with his fingers, to see just how close Hux was to taking it all in. He rolled his hips, rocking into it, feeling the egg nearly there. It was all he could do to keep from coming until Kylo said the word, muscles desperate to spasm around it, pull it up, pull it in. Just a little more.

Shifting over, Kylo took his left nipple into his mouth and stroked it with his tongue. He gently sucked before pulling off and blowing across it, rolling the other between his fingers. Hux rolled his head back, eyelids fluttering open and shut. He could barely tell where one stimulation ended and another began.

He felt something spark, not physical, but in Kylo’s mind. He slid down the mattress and angled himself between Hux’s legs, giving the egg a terribly mean tap. Hux grunted, feet sliding against the sheets. When he felt Kylo’s tongue sliding around the end of the egg, laving at the abused muscles surrounding it, Hux thought he might combust. A light push, and then stronger, a thrust, all while his tongue licked and stroked and drove Hux mad. It was filthy, and it was intoxicating.          

When it finally slid inside completely, Hux screamed. He was every star that passed them by, fiery and incandescent. He could feel the insignia embossed along one side and nearly cried when Kylo turned it exactly where it needed to be. It rubbed up against him, the raised and rounded circle sending shockwaves of pain and wonder through his body. It was everything, it was devotion, it was order in the truest sense. It was darkness radiant. It was a coronal sun in eclipse, and it was his.

When the world exploded into white light, into every color and sound, Kylo’s hand was heavy on his cock, wrapped tight around the base, the head just past his lips. He rode it out with Hux, swallowed him down. Hux felt him move up, thrusting against his hip almost as if from another world and he wrapped his arms around Kylo’s shoulders tight, so tight. He couldn’t tell which of them was hanging on the strongest. Hux didn’t think it was long at all before a second burst filled his mind and soaked his skin, changing everything to blue and black stars.

When Hux remembered how to breathe, Kylo was there, kissing his cheeks, his eyelids, his mouth. He tasted like Hux, he tasted like fire. Wiping the tears from his cheeks, Kylo wrapped him up completely in his arms and held him close. Hux didn’t ever want to move again.  

 

When he woke, his body limp, his mind exhausted, he found the others were already arranged about the room. He didn’t have the wherewithal to be taken aback, or even surprised. Mercy sat on the end of the bed, Auspex glanced out the window. Rukh perched on a table next to Falx, and Voll lounged against the wall. It took him a moment to find The Morling, but he was there, sat on the floor beside a chair. None of them wore their masks.

 _Emissary_ , they said as one.

Hux took a deep breath, glancing down beside him where Kylo still slept. He ran his fingers through Kylo’s hair, traced the red line down his cheek before giving his answer. He’d always known what it would be.

“Yes.”

 

Days passed, then weeks, and gradually the crew seemed to grow used to seeing Hux flanked by Kylo or one of his knights wherever he went. He accepted small changes in his wardrobe where directed, wearing his tunics longer, jet edged with a bold blue. The stone around his neck picked up the colors, accentuating them, making an impression - or so he was told. Hux was no longer overlooked by anyone. He couldn’t be.

Kylo met him in his quarters one night, small but comfortable, connected to the rest. He wasn’t alone, joined by Spex and Mercy and Rukh. The others were close enough to be felt, and that served. Auspex pulled an item from a fold in his robes and examined it before handing it to Rukh, who did the same. She passed it to Mercy, who passed it to Kylo, who held out his hand to Hux.

Placing his hand in Kylo’s, Hux held down his curiosity. There was nothing left to be given, he thought, but was swiftly and gently corrected. Kylo placed a strong gold chain against his arm.  Rukh stepped in to close it snugly just above his wrist, linking two identical stones together. They were flat, dark ovals edged in gold, dipped in red where the narrow ends met.              

In a reedy voice, Auspex chanted. “You have always been with us, Emissary,” his words, and was shortly joined by another.

_So will you always be._

Hux began to understand. He was enough, and yet never alone. He was free, while being kept. He was home.  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Tagged as Dubious Consent due to alcohol consumption, voyeurism without prior discussion, and some rough force projecting. Hux is held down, unable to move, but honestly really into it anyway. I tried to tag everything, please let me know if I need to add. 
> 
> Title from _Burnt Norton_ by T.S. Eliot because I'm pretentious. Huge thanks to [gundamoocow](http://archiveofourown.org/users/gundamoocow/pseuds/gundamoocow) for running the event, and to [dreamingofawolf](http://archiveofourown.org/users/rl4sb4eva/pseuds/dreamingofawolf) for being my long-suffering beta. I have a [tumblr](http://griesly.tumblr.com), come say hello!


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